


Fractured Art

by astridur



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-06-06 05:04:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6739207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astridur/pseuds/astridur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will has worked hard to create a little corner of peace for himself after the fall, but his old life is catching up to him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Cookies

The dogs were eagerly milling around Will's legs as he sidestepped his way to the door.  
"What kind of person would show up at this hour unannounced", he asked himself as he pulled on a t-shirt that he found hanging over the back of one of the chairs in the kitchen.  
The sun was just about to peak over the horizon, but after the dank darkness of his house it was just enough to momentarily blind him. He rubbed a hand over his face before he focused on the man standing in front of him.  
The man was wearing a coat, scarf and an expressionless face.  
"Mr Graham?"  
"Yes," Will growled as he tried to remember if he had paid the latest bill to the water company.  
The man exhaled. "Then I've come to the right place", he said. "Jack Crawford sent me. My name is..."  
Will gently closed the door in the man's face. Turning his back on the door, he fisted his hands digging his short, worn nails into the skin of his palm.  
The man outside knocked on the door again. "Mr Graham?"  
The voice sounded muffled through the door.

What could Jack possibly want after all this time? He had done his time for the bureau. He had been shot, stabbed and strangled. He had spent enough time in the minds of serial killers to gradually start becoming one, reliving their repulsive acts at night as if perpetrated by his own hands. In the end he had not only given up his integrity, he had given up his heart to one of these killers. In the moment when they had both plunged towards certain death he had welcomed the idea that this would be the end.  
Alas, that was not to be. He had floated up alone towards the surface like some disgusting secret that should have stayed buried; instead the waves had washed him ashore. He had drowned and re-emerged, not reborn or clean but feeling filthy and empty.  
As he had left the shore with naught but the shoes on feet and clothes on his back, he had promised himself that if the sea wouldn't take him, he would still fade away from this life. He had not looked back to his old life, but kept walking until he hit a road.  
And now he found himself in Minnesota in a cottage, not that far from Lake Itasca. Lots of time to go fishing. Lots of time to live the quiet life of an unremarkable ghost.

Will contemplated the frosted glass window on the door. He could still see the silhouette of the man's head outside. What right had Jack Crawford to butt into his life after two years? How could he start the running again now that he had finally found quiet? He wanted to cry and carve Jack up at the same time.  
Will took a deep breath as he straightened his posture. The dogs were still sitting at the door, looking expectantly at it. Will stepped to the offending portal with determined steps, opening it as the man's pleading started taking on a distinctly whining note. "What does Jack want?," he asked.

The man at the threshold swallowed, then squared his shoulders. "He sent me to bring you back." He picked up his briefcase and took out a brown envelope which he extended to Will. "There was a murder two months..."

"No," Will said, his gaze drifting past the man's shoulder. "I don't do that anymore." He shook his head at the envelope.

Will looked at the man's hands. One would need to be a city rat to not wear gloves or stick one's hands into the coat pockets in the dry, cold Minnesota winter air, but the man was still holding out the envelope to Will. "Listen, agent...?"

"Hicks. And I'm not an agent."

"Well then, mr Hicks. Please tell Jack that I will not be of any use to him. I'm done. And this time there is no family he can use to guilt trip me into going back to him."  
Technically it was true, as he had not attempted to contact any of his stray family since that evening, knowing that Molly, Wally and the dogs would be fine with Molly's parents. He couldn't explain to her any of what had happened in that last week of his former life, but he had hoped that his death, albeit on the paper, would give her the closure she'd need in order to move on.

The man's eyes moved to the dogs and he put the envelope back into the briefcase. "I understand mr Graham. I will tell mr Crawford that you are not available for any consulting at this time."

Will nodded slowly. As his hand moved towards the door, he remembered the manners that he had never really possessed. "Thank you for stopping by."  
As he closed the door in mr Hicks' face for the second time that day he turned to the dogs with a sigh. Sending Hicks had been a desperate move from Jack's side. Yet Will harbored no hope that this was the last he'd see from Jack or his minion. The man, Hicks, had glanced at the dogs before he left. Will imagined that they would be mentioned in whatever report Hicks would present to Jack upon his return to Quantico.

After he had hitchhiked his way down to New Orleans he had followed the Mississippi river upstreams to the north. He knew the pattern was simple enough, but since nobody had seemed to look for him, he had followed it. There was something soothing about the flowing waters, something familiar. As he had settled not far from its source, he found it to be oddly poetic that he would finally find peace in the same state where everything had begun when he shot Gareth Jacob Hobbs.  
The idea of leaving the cottage now made his stomach tighten, but it was either that or getting sucked back into Jack’s world of victim’s shadows suspended on dust. Having stayed in the same place for the last nine months, the hope of settling had wriggled into his heart. It was foolish, but he had given in to it.

There was no river left to follow now and there was nowhere obvious to go, so he went back to bed.  
While staring up at the ceiling he thought he could see the vague shape of Molly's face in the spots. Will hadn't thought of her for so long, not since the fall. He wondered if Jack had told her about finding him. He wondered HOW Jack had found him. Maybe he had known since the beginning.

Will closed his eyes and thought he could hear someone say his name in a vaguely accented voice. “See, Will?”  
He opened his eyes again and sat up straight. His calf muscles had tensed up and his breath came in uneven bursts. No, he would not think of the man who had died in the fall, it was not allowed.

Ok, so no sleep then.  
Will groaned, then rolled over enough to put his left foot on the floor boards. One of the dogs came over to put his cold nose against it, causing Will to immediately twitch and put his other foot on the floor as well.  
He looked down at the mutt that was now alternating between buffing it's nose against Will's knees and trying to put its paws on his legs to get closer to his face. He bent down to give the dog a hug. "How on earth did you make it all this way?," he thought as he softly scratched Winston behind his ears.

The dog had shown up at the end of October. The paws had been badly worn. Weight-wise he had been barely bones. The fur had lost all its natural glow and was full of ticks. Will hadn't even been sure if it actually was Winston until he noticed half of his social security number tattooed on what remained of the right ear. He had whispered Winston's name and the dog had looked up to weekly lick at his hand.  
It had taken a week for the paws to heal properly while Will had made sure to put vaseline on them at least twice a day. The other two dogs had kept away from the kennel the first 2 days and then casually attempted to approach Winston. Will had been surprised as Winston had briefly raised his hackles and shown his teeth to Gillie, but then he’d proceeded to ignore her just as he patiently disregarded Poe’s sniffing at the newest pack member.  
Will was happy to have Winston back, but at the same time slightly appalled with himself that something that would bring Wally sorrow would bring him so much joy.  
The first ten days Winston had refused to leave Will's side. Short visits to the bathroom had been done in accompagnement to Winston's low whining outside the door. After five days of not leaving the house, he’d stood in front of the fridge wondering how to make lunch out of ketchup and jam and decided that as unhappy as Winston would be, it was time to go grocery shopping. He had needed to stop the car after 300 yards because Winston kept limping in its direction. Will had let Winston into the car and driven off to the Park Rapids supermarket. Telling Winston that he would only be gone for a bit had seemly had no effect as 10 minutes into his shopping he had heard a message on the loudspeakers directed to the owner of the old volvo to go check on his howling dog.  
Upon returning to the car, Winston had cheerily liked his face, barking with joy, as if Will had been gone for several months rather than 15 minutes.  
As Winston's paws had got better he’d started letting Will out of his sight for longer periods. Still, he mostly took the dog with him when he knew he would be out longer than half a day.  
Winston had clearly made quite a journey to find him, but he seemed to have changed somewhat along the way. Some days Will would catch Winston sitting absolutely still, watching the road attentively, as if waiting for something. Other days he would barely settle down, walking in circles with his tail swishing back and forth near the ground.  
Will had thought that once Winston would feel safe again he would stop the behavior, but three months had passed, and whereas Winston had stopped howling when Will would leave him, he hadn't stopped watching the road leading up to the house.  
Today however was clearly a walking day. Winston broke loose from Will's hug. He walked towards the kitchen, then back to the door. Once there he made a circle, walking back to bed to buff against Will's legs again. "Walk?," Will asked and noticed from the corner of his eye that Gillie’s ears peaked. Poe was still on his back, stretched out on the pillow that he’d claimed for his own, one leg twitching occasionally. That dog, Will thought as he opened the door to watch Gillie and Winston rush outside, should have stayed in whatever pampered mansion he’d run away from.

The day moved along, Will fed the dogs and went for a long walk. He passed by old Mrs Olson's house to fix a heating problem. He inspected the engine of his car in preparation. He drove down to lake Itasca, where he drilled a hole in the ice to fish for a while with Winston by his side.  
The day seemed to happen to someone else. Will's mind lay like a filter between the real world in front of him, and the actions he should be taking. He should go home, pack up his few tools and personal belongings. He should grab the escape bag that was standing in the closet. The dogs should be dropped at the shelter on the way out of town.  
He knew this was the right thing to do, but the will just wasn't there. He couldn't bring himself to go back to life on the road.  
Winston pushed him lightly and whined as if he somehow knew where Will's mind was drifting to. Giving the dog back to the shelter would be cruel after all the energy Winston had put into making his way back to his former owner. He scratched the mutt between the ears. Winston leaned into his touch, relaxing.  
Will exhaled, letting his eyes follow the little cloud his breath made as it drifted off into air and dissolved. He had truly hoped to stay.

=======

Mr Hicks — still not an agent — hit the send button on his laptop and leaned back in his chair. His accomplishments today, a bit blurry at the edges as they were, would not suffice to satisfy the guru.  
Crawford had told him that there would be no glory for him to come back to until he had made Will analyze the crime scene reports. Mr Hicks put the technical device from hell away and poured himself a glass of overpriced whiskey from the hotel room bar, hoping it would warm him up.  
Minnesota sure was cold. The heating did increase the temperature, but it also sucked all the moisture out of the air. The skin on his back felt like it was stretched out like a drum skin. His hands were coated in a white shimmer of micro flakes.  
He remembered how Graham's gaze had briefly swept his hands and he could have sworn there was a hint of smugness about him after that. “Thank you for stopping by indeed, you little shit” Hicks muttered, deciding that the first order of business tomorrow would be acquiring some thermal wear and gloves.

He hadn't idled by on his room the rest of the day either, but passed by the dog shelter, feigning interest in a dog to get the woman at the shelter to talk about Graham.  
Apparently Will had showed up out of nowhere nine months previous, simply settling down in the Johnston cottage, since everybody knew that it had been standing empty for the last two years after their eldest daughter had died and the Johnstons were more than happy to rent out the cottage to Will in exchange for him fixing it up, it wasn't like they were using it anyway and they were probably looking to sell it. Of course Will was doing some other handiwork around town, he was useful to have around, had even fixed some of the roof on the shelter back in October.  
Hicks had sighed internally and fantasized about how he was going to stuff the chatty woman's mouth with dog biscuits to keep her quiet, but maintained his stoic exterior as she chatted away for the next half an hour about how kindhearted Will was who had made time to help her no less than four times when her car had refused to start in the winter, and how she had tried to set him up with her daughter, and wasn’t it a shame about that horrible facial scar. Then she had brought out the cookies and by the time that she had urged him to choke down one of the desert dry homemade cookies — wielding her midwestern hospitality as a weapon — Hicks had been ready to grasp at any straw to get himself out of there. He had found his first chance at a dignified exit in the regulations surrounding adoptions. The lady had seemed truly sorry to hear that Hicks was actually a resident of Bemidji and informed him that unfortunately the adorable little pooch that he had selected could not be adopted by someone outside of Clearwater county.  
Hicks had thanked the lady for the cookies and done his best to look genuinely disappointed about not being able to take the filthy mutt home.

The cookie had had a liver-like aftertaste that had stayed for the rest of the day. Hicks found himself wondering if they had been intended for dogs rather than people. He poured himself a second glass of whiskey, sighing with pleasure as he could finally sense the aftertaste of the cookies dissipating.  
He leaned back into the armchair and watched the amber liquid swirl in the plastic cup from the bathroom, wishing he was home with his little black book full of phone numbers of fashionably starved, well-dressed women rather than stuck in this hell-hole at the end of the world waiting for that scruffy, stubborn man who smelled like his dogs to finally deign to look at Jack Crawford’s files.  
Remembering that he would need to go back to Graham’s place the next morning, Hicks winced as he opened the last mini-bottle from the bar to pour himself a third glass, unable to think of any other way of fortifying himself against the challenges that awaited him after sunrise.


	2. Coffee

Winter extended an icy claw into Will’s house through the open door. He could see Winston and Gillie running outside, occasionally slipping on the packed snow next to the porch.

Inside, Poe clearly noticed the chill; he had curled himself into a small ball, but still refused to leave the pillow. Will looked down on him and nudged him with the foot.  
“C’mon”, he pleaded. “We need to leave early today.”  
Poe opened an eye, briefly stretching his short legs before returning to his previous position.  
“Spoiled”, Will scowled. He picked up the pooch before carrying him outside and dumping him unceremoniously on the porch before returning inside to make himself some coffee.

The dreams that had run rampant throughout the night were still close by, but gradually fading as light increased. Mr Hicks’s visit had given the monsters in his subconscious something to feed on, they were lingering in the shadows of his kitchen where they whispered names from Will’s past. He sensed their faint smell: the cloying sweetness of dead flowers in standing water, iron and bergamot.  
His breath hitched as he realized he could even feel them physically, cold and wet against his leg. Slowly his eyes drifted downwards and he gradually realized that he wasn’t standing in a sea of blood, but that Poe, wet from the snow, was resting his little body against Will’s leg for warmth while gazing longingly at the cupboard where Mrs Ericsson’s dog treats resided.  
“Poe!”  
The little dog looked up, eyeing Will with both shame and hope at the same time. Will retrieved the coveted biscuits from the tin jar in the cupboard. He bent down to show it to Poe who licked his mouth in anticipation of the treat, then he threw it through the open door.  
The rascal ran out of the house as if he was chasing a cat, rather than his favorite cookie.  
Will trailed after Poe with a cup of coffee in his hands. His gaze roamed over the dogs playing in the snow — much like Winston’s did over the road leading up to the house — before he closed the door with a sigh.

The escape bag would be in the closet of the second bedroom. Will had moved it out from under his bed after the first three months when he’d realized that he wasn’t going to run any more, but he hadn’t emptied it.  
“I must have known I was gonna need it”, he thought. The left corner of his mouth twitched in a crooked semblance of a smile.  
He headed up the stairs to the second bedroom and pulled out the bag from its hiding place. The contents of his time on the road were still in there, untouched: clothes, cash, burner phone.  
Will rested on his knees next to the bag, looking at it but not really seeing. His body demanded that he curl in on himself, but pride would not allow him. Will steeled his spine and picked up the bag; for its meager contents it felt heavy.  
Downstairs in the kitchen, he transferred the extra cash from the pickle jar to its new resting place inside a rolled up pair of socks in the escape bag. He had what he needed to go, everything but the will to do it.  
His vision blurred. “Dammit Will,” he whispered to himself, “they’re just dogs”. He swiped his shirt sleeve over his eyes in a jerky motion, then he went for the door, lazily trailing a hand along the counter in a last goodbye to the house that had been his for the last nine months.

The icy wind cleared his complexion the moment he stepped outside with the escape bag slung over his shoulder. Poe tried to slip back in through the crack of the door but Will blocked him with his foot. Gillie came over to sniff at Will, but Winston remained standing in the snow, tail swishing low, eyeing the escape bag. Then he trotted towards the car.

Will helped Poe into the hatchback. He placed one of the little dog’s toys next to his paws, then he covered the kennel with a towel as the pooch disliked seeing the road.  
After settling himself in the driver’s seat, he looked through the rear-view mirror at the other two dogs who were strapped into the back. Gillie wore a dopey grin, anticipating the ride. He wasn’t sure if she was actually more fond of the movement or of the familiar scent of the car which had belonged to her former owner.

Will swallowed. Gillie had been his first companion after a year on the road. He had told her repeatedly that he was bad luck, that she should follow someone else, but she had insisted on trailing after him.  
Will sighed. He was repaying Gillie poorly for saving him, he thought to himself as he started the car and drove off. He kept the little house in his eye though the rear-view mirror and watched it shrink until he turned out to the road.

 

Vivian Anderson, or Viv as she liked to be called, waved at Will from the porch when he parked the car in front of the shelter, her knitted cardigan wrapping her homely silhouette in reindeer. She crossed her arms in front of her as she took in the look on his face when he walked up to her. “Let the dogs into the yard, Will. You’ll have some coffee.”  
Will steeled himself while did as he’d been told.

When he entered the cramped kitchen, Viv was just putting the coffee cups on the table. Her coffee was black as tar and had a similar consistency. The cookies on the middle of the table looked like chocolate chip, but he knew from experience that looks could deceive.

Viv observed his cautious evaluation of the cookie tray and nodded. “Yes, they’re safe,” she admitted. “I already know you like dogs.”

Will took a bite out of the cookie to counter the strong coffee.

“The man who was here yesterday though, he didn’t like my cookies,” Viv continued, curling her hands around the cup for warmth.

Will looked at her from under his fringe. “Any hair on his coat?”

“No, and a fine coat it was too. Your Poe would have taken a shine to it.” She looked right at him, with her arms crossed, leaning back into the chair.

Viv had never minced her words regarding how ‘an attractive young man such as himself should find a nice girl and settle down’, and how that was never going happen if even Poe had better taste in clothes than he did. He did not for one moment share her delusion that he could ever belong in a relationship again, but having someone believe that he could warmed him a bit when he got lonely.

Will looked down, trying to hide his reaction to how the thought of Hicks intruding on his world with his city coat, gloveless hands and Jack’s blessing — forcing him to take stock of his own irreparability — had made Will’s mind darken. He took another sip of the coffee to swallow down the bile.  
“Hicks,” he snarled, feeling something shift in his chest.  
He imagined the man sitting in the kitchen, desperately trying to avoid the cookies that Viv had served him. “I bet he left here by himself.”

“He wasn’t fond of dogs,” she mused, “but he was very interested in a two-legged stray.” Viv tilted her head to the side and pursed her lips as she observed him carefully.

Will looked at the wall behind her. This was the moment where he would need to let go of his haven and go back. He bit his lip to distract himself from the sense of dread. “I need to ask a favor.” His voice sounded devoid of emotion, like they’d been talking about the latest timberwolves game.

“No.”

“I need to leave the… what?”

“I said no.”

Will stared at the Viv in disbelief. She was known in town as ‘Granny Dogs’ because of her love for all canines, whether purebred or strays.  
“Viv, I..”

“No,” she said, smiling wistfully. “You see, my first dog, he was a stray too. I named him Houdini after his worst trait: every now and then he would disappear. The few minutes before any escape attempt he used to wear that same expression that you did coming up the stairs this morning. So the answer is no, I will not find new homes for your dogs.”

“How?”

“Told you. I learned enough from Houdini to spot another runner when I see one. You come here with your bags packed and your car full of dogs, it ain’t too hard to figure out what’s going on.” Viv poured another cup of coffee for herself.

Will racked his brain, desperately trying to find a way to persuade her otherwise, but was interrupted as she patted him on the hand. “But I’ll look after them for you while you’re gone… though you had better come pick them up before easter.”

His shoulders sagged with relief. “Thank you.” He reached into his pocket for the wad of cash. “Here. For food, meds, whatever.” The words were awkward to him, they didn’t convey the extent his gratitude towards her for looking after his stray family.

Viv lifted an eyebrow. “That should cover Poe’s fancy french food for a week,” she quipped, but then sobered. “The man who was here… I told him nothing that he won’t find out from the neighbors anyway. But are you safe?” She fidgeted with her hands and furrowed her brow. “Is he from one of them Chicago families?,” she whispered.

He looked at her, momentarily stumped. “One of the… What? No!” Will shook his head emphatically. “I’m not being followed by the mafia!”  
But there certainly seemed to be a similarity between how neither the mafia nor the FBI were willing to let their former employees leave their service, he thought to himself bitterly.

Viv looked down on the wad of cash in her hand and then back to Will.

“Really, Viv?”

She glared at him in response to his disbelieving tone. “Well… you and Gillie kinda showed up out of nowhere… and your scar… the cash... I'm sorry.”

He looked down at the table, self-consciously rubbing at the scruffy stubble that hid the aforementioned defect.

“Why won’t you tell me what’s going on?”, she pleaded.

He regarded the old woman who had given Poe his shots and provided Will with care instructions for Winston. To her mind, they would now be as much her dogs as they were his, so she would not let go of this bone until it had been properly chewed to pieces. For now he may be another stray to Granny Dogs, but if he told her the truth…  
“Hicks wants me to fix his boat engine,” he blurted out.

“Will Graham!” She slammed her cup down on the table where some of its contents spilled over.

Will jerked back from the sound of impact, the indignant tone of her voice coloring his cheeks.

“‘Country don’t mean dumb. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

“I am.” Technically it was true. She just had no idea of how ashamed of himself he was.  
He watched the stain spreading on the table cloth and he decided that if she was going to look over the only friends he had left, she deserved to know at least part of the story.

He proceeded to tell Viv a version of the truth, where his friend still was a killer but the only person Will himself had killed was Gareth Jacob Hobbs. He heard the crack in his own voice when he said the name for the first in the years since the dinner so long ago. From the corner of his eyes, he perceived the shadows moving in the kitchen. They were feeding off the names from his nightmares, licking their lips while they waited for him to voice his name. Will only referred to him as his friend.

He told Viv about how he had washed ashore and decided to leave that life behind, how he had travelled along the mississippi to find quiet and how the engines he fixed didn’t try to take over his dreams.  
He told her of drifting from one place to the next, knowing he would stay no longer than the next few days. Slowly, as he realized that nobody seemed to be searching for him, 'the next few days' had formed into 'a couple of weeks''.

There were things he held back of course: Viv didn’t need to know about his brief departure from the path of the law in Biloxi. She would probably not approve of his strange encounter in the bayou. And his misfortune in Cape Girardeau was never to be mentioned, he would not have anyone pity him, especially not Granny Dogs.  
As he ran out of words he realized that the sun was setting and the coffee had gone cold. He looked at Viv, but she seemed the same to him.

“So... I served an FBI agent dog biscuits?”

“It’s ok. He’s not an agent.” Will smiled with relief and gratitude at her acceptance.

=======

Thinking that mr Graham might be more amenable to visitors in the afternoon instead of morning, Hicks parked his car outside of the Johnstons’ cottage just after 3.30 PM.

The old Volvo that he had noted outside the house on his previous visit was not there. He sighed and looked out the window. It had been snowing lightly for the last half an hour, as if the weather didn’t care enough to bring on a full snowfall, but still wanted to make itself known.  
Hicks dug his gloved hands into his coat pockets and chuckled. He had known a lady very similar to the snow fall once: she also hadn’t quite cared enough to bring a full storm.

His eyes drifted to the indentations in the snow which he presumed was paw prints that had started disappearing under the new snow. “They ought to be barking”, he thought and looked towards the house. The previous day he had heard them run around in the house before Graham had opened the door.

Hicks stepped up to the porch and looked in through the kitchen window. The place looked tidy; no dishes in the sink, no plates on the table, no dogs.

The gloves didn’t work with the touchscreen on his smartphone. He removed them to dial a number, all the while feeling a sting of irritation as it reminded him of Graham’s smug glance at his hands the previous day.

“Is Graham the running type?,” Hicks asked as Crawford answered on the third ring. It was convenient that paper pushers didn’t have much of a reason to not answer the phone.

“Is the guy who disappeared for two years a runner?,” came the dry reply.

Hicks kicked half-heartedly at the snow. Yeah, it had been a stupid question.  
“Place looks tidy, dogs are gone,” he stated, hiding his shame behind facts.

“Do you see any fishing gear?”

He peered intently through the window. “No”  
The line went eerily quiet for a while. He found himself checking the screen to see if the call had been disconnected.

“Cam, sometimes it really is easier to ask for forgiveness than permission,” the guru sighed.

“What?,” Hicks interjected, but the silence stretched out between them. He looked at the screen again, concluding that this time the call really had ended.

He stuffed his phone back into the coat pocket and pulled the glove back on his right hand in a jerky motion. Crawford was looking down on him, treating him like an idiot, throwing these stupid tests his way. It was infuriating and he would sure prefer to get a clear answer once in a while.  
He kicked the railing of the porch and heard the boards creak. Crap. He drew a breath and re-centered himself.

During the phone call, Crawford had honed in on the fishing gear. “Sure,” Hicks thought to himself, “he could be fishing, but there was more of a mess here yesterday.”  
This brought him to the permissions. If Graham would catch him sneaking into the house, it wouldn’t exactly make him more receptive to the idea of helping them, but on the other hand Hicks had to know if he was running away again.  
He pursed his lips looking from the porch to his car. He would wait for an hour. If Graham was fishing, he ought to be back by twilight. Nobody should be out on the ice in the dark.

Hicks walked back to the car. The snow stuck to the soles of his shoes, and their groves weren’t deep enough to provide a reliable grip on the surface. In spite of being dead set on avoiding the indignity of slipping and landing on his ass there were a few close calls. He was grateful that Graham wasn’t around to see it. Hell, he was happy the dogs weren’t around to see it either.  
He scraped the snow from his shoes off against the frame of the car door before he sat down in the driver’s seat to wait.  
He fervently hoped that Crawford’s miracle monkey hadn’t decided to hit the road. The guru had made it clear that Graham was essential to the investigation.  
Hicks closed his eyes and leaned against the headrest of the toyota that he had rented from Duluth airport. Like the rest of the car, it felt unreliable.

When he had contacted Crawford six months ago to report his suspicions, he had hoped that he would find himself respected for his insights and granted access to a team of top-notch analysts.  
Hicks had turned to his superiors first, only to be laughed at. In spite of the humiliation he had escalated his suspicions to the FBI, only to be brushed aside as a small-town cop looking for a bit of a glamorous break from the usual petty crimes.  
When his boss had found out of his meeting with the feds, he had been mighty upset — upset enough to tell him to take a week off to cool his head. That was of course neither fair nor legal, but at that point Hicks himself had been rather upset, and a week off hadn’t seemed like a bad idea.

At some point during that week he had found himself in a hotel bar near Quantico, talking to a weathered, aloof woman who turned out to be not-quite-FBI.  
In spite of his obvious pickup attempts and somewhat intoxicated state, she had heard him out. He remembered being quite grateful at the time, as he had been rejected both by his superiors and the FBI.  
She had given him a name and a number, referring to her contact as 'the guru'.

Gratifying as it had been to have an intelligent and mysterious woman listening to his tale of woe and suspected serial-killers, his mind had started drifting towards how much more gratifying it would be to catch one of her smiles -- he had a feeling they were few and far apart -- or what a sweet ending to his evening it would be, were she to accompany him to his room. For shame, she had vanished before Hicks had time to formulate a pitch, giving an unfathomable excuse of needing to get rid of her arm for the evening.

The name and number had connected him to a disgraced agent whose only reason for helping him was the burning urge to show the FBI that they had made a mistake in demoting him to desk-duty; for that was exactly what had become of Jack Crawford.  
Unfortunately, he was the only person to believe Hicks’ tale of a serial killer on the loose, disguising his victims as unrelated acts of manslaughter.

The sun set and Hicks shook himself from his reverie and went to work on the lock to the front door of the cottage.  
He closed the door behind him slowly in order to minimize any sound. It was only as he caught himself tip-toeing into the kitchen that he realized that his fear of being discovered was making him act illogically. He gave a wry chuckle and relaxed to move through the house normally.

The house smelled of dogs and dust. It was stuffy.

The living room had a bed in it and he found himself wondering why someone would sleep so close to the entrance rather than in the seclusion of a bedroom.  
The bed was not made and it reeked of sweat. It made Hicks feel somewhat vindicated to know that Graham hadn’t had a peaceful night’s sleep.

The fishing poles hung on the wall. Judging by how there were no gaps between them, none of them seemed to be missing. “Not fishing then,” Hick’s concluded with a sigh. He was still honest enough with himself to appreciate that he was not going to get caught sneaking around in the house.  
As a Highland county, Virginia officer he had absolutely no legal foot to stand on in Minnesota. This was pure breaking and entering, and Jack Crawford wouldn’t be able to get him out of this pinch, no matter what his stance was on ‘asking for forgiveness rather than permission’.

There were two rooms upstairs. One was empty, the other housed a closet and a bed. The bed was void of any covers. Hicks imagined that it may have been used by the former inhabitants of the cottage as a bedroom, but since the current tenant seemed to prefer sleeping in the living room, this might now be the guest room, if anybody would actually care to visit that scruffy, uncivilized man.

The closet was neatly arranged with almost exclusively sturdy outdoor clothes.  
He found himself somewhat surprised at the monotony of white sport socks and t-shirts, but imagined that someone who lived in a cottage in the middle of the woods with three dogs may not have much of an excuse to wear anything else.

Hicks briefly imagined what it must be like to dress like a lumberjack every day, wincing imperceptibly when he considered giving up his rebelliously patterned socks for Graham’s hideous, personality-free bulk-deal socks.

Having found no clues in the closet of what Graham’s next stop would be, he we went back downstairs to the living room / bedroom.

The bookshelf, like the rest of the furniture, had obviously had previous owners. Nothing in the cottage seemed new.  
Bukowski, Dumas, Twain. There were no recently published books on the shelves. If anything, it seemed that the owner of the books had wanted to surround himself with soothing whiskey literature for winter evenings by the fireplace.  
The copy of ‘The count of montecristo’ seemed especially well-read. When he picked it up, two of the pages fell out of its mass market paperback glue binding. He quickly put them back into the book and put it back on the shelf.

“All right, where did you go?” Hicks mused out loud for the room to hear.  
Graham had left his clothes, his favorite book and his fishing gear. He’d been sweating with fear last night. Today he was driving somewhere in an old Volvo with three dogs for company. Whereto?

“Think, think, think,” Hicks muttered as he got into his rental, the items in the rooms of the house flipping by on a slide show in his mind. The dogs’ metal food bowls in the kitchen. The underwear drawer with its contents lined in straight lines like a little army of white cotton unmentionables. The count of monte christo. The two pages that fell out. And back to the metal food bowls. “Oh!”

Hicks was happy to realize that he had already turned on to the main road. He may not know where Graham was going, but he was pretty damn sure that those dogs weren’t going anywhere.


	3. Fish Stew

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank my beta-reader Matilda for her wonderful insights and editing suggestions.

For the first time in a long while, Lady Fortune had sided with him, Hicks though as he pulled up to the shelter.  
Graham's beat up car stood parked outside. From the amount of snow that had gathered on its windshield, it must have been there for the better part of the day.

He exited his vehicle and cautiously approached the old Volvo, not wanting any four-legged, fur-covered creatures possibly residing therein to raise a ruckus as it could warn their owner. Nobody, four-legged or otherwise, sat in the car.  
"No dogs in his house, no dogs in his car," he thought to himself in a sing-song voice, but didn't need to wonder for long where they could have gone to as he soon perceived shadows streaking through the fenced off yard. He thought the little dog with the short legs seemed familiar from the previous day.

Hicks licked his lips, increased heart rate pulsed against his tongue. Graham had presumably attempted to leave town, but he might yet remain in the shelter with the chatty owner from the previous day. He was excited, yet simultaneously nauseated, with trepidation at the prospect of facing the elusive profiler... if he was indeed there. Maybe he only felt sickened by the idea that Graham might have slipped away: it would take time he could not afford to track him down again.

He mentally shook himself. “Get the pussy or be the pussy,” his father’s voice echoed back to him.  
Not being a pussy had gotten him into this situation to begin with, and he was sure as hell not going to let some escape-prone handyman in the middle of bumfuck nowhere turn him into one.  
Determination warmed him and he noted from the backseat of his mind that whereas his heart still beat hard and fast, it was no longer from trepidation. It was anticipation.

He walked up to the door and tested the handle. “Just like these farmers to not lock their doors” he thought as he let himself in. Walking towards the sound of voices, he took care not to step so close that they could see him.  
Shielded by the corridor, there weren’t visible to him, but Graham's voice sounded a great deal more relaxed than the day before. He even detected a hint of amusement. Perhaps this had been a social visit after all then. Hicks was glad that he had left the man's house nearly undisturbed.

Compared to the crisp air outside, the house felt stuffy. The smell of stale coffee and wet dogs drifted towards him from the kitchen.

Graham mumbled something and the woman laughed.  
"You should have seen his face, trying to chew his way through the second dog biscuit. He was so polite he couldn't put on the plate and just leave it be."

Hicks swallowed obsessively, imagining Graham’s grim face relaxing to nearly voice that breathless chuckle he just heard from the kitchen. Fuck! They really had been dog biscuits. What kind of sick bitch… yeah, right. Shelter owner.  
Damn her, the stray dogs, her dog biscuits, Jack Crawford and that cowardly profiler!  
Still trying to swallow around his own tongue, Hicks readied himself to storm into the kitchen and give its two occupants a come to jesus talk regarding the morality of serving people dog biscuits when he heard the chairs scrape against the floor.

He froze, caught between his raging need for vindication and the instinctual knowledge that Graham would never agree while the shelter owner was there to back him.  
He fisted his hands, drawing a determined breath before he slunk out the door. 

Having moved the car 100 yards down the road from the shelter, Hicks slumped in the seat, waiting for his quarry to emerge.  
The small parking lot outside of the animal shelter was not well-lit, but he still worried that Graham might notice the tracks he’d left in the snow.

The minutes ticked by slowly and Hicks found himself fidgeting with the change in his pocket. After ten minutes, just as he’d started worrying that Graham wouldn’t leave at all and he’d be stuck sleeping in the car watching the house, the door to the shelter opened, letting out a light that dyed the snow flurries a warm ivory white.  
He saw the two silhouettes on the porch temporarily blend in a hug, then the taller one walked stiffly towards the enclosed yard where it stopped.  
“He looks brittle, like an old geezer,” Hicks thought to himself as he watched the shape that was Graham bend towards the dogs on the other side of the enclosure, presumably petting them over the fence.  
The shape turned, walking towards the old Volvo.  
“No way,” Hicks chuckled gleefully, somewhat vindicated as he watched Graham take off his glasses, cleaning them with the edge of his stupid lumberjack shirt. “Is the big, bad profiler crying?”

As Graham’s car sped past his own, Hicks started the engine and followed the car at an appropriate distance.  
The snowflakes whirling in front of him caught the headlights making it hard to see anything except for the red tail lights of the car ahead of him.  
The radio would only play christian rock and country music, so he refused to turn it on letting the windscreen wipers, which whooshed back and forth at high frequency, be the only sound in the car.

After half an hour, he turned down the heat in the car as it started to make him drowsy. According to the GPS, they were slowly heading northwest. Hicks didn’t like it one bit, for the only destination he could think in that direction was their northern neighbor.

=======

Will stifled a yawn as he stretched one arm at a time. His right shoulder hurt and it emitted a muffled cracking sound when he shifted in the seat. Not that the shoulder had been great before it had been penetrated by Chiyoh’s bullet, and later on Francis’ knife, but it served him as yet another reminder of why he should avoid any involvement in Jack’s world of killer interiority.

In spite of his self-assuring inner monologue of how they were just dogs, leaving said pets behind had worn him out emotionally. He wasn’t sure if he had lied to Viv when he’d told her that he would be back for them, but he hoped he would. Winston and Gillie — hell, even Poe, in spite of his pickiness — deserved better than being left behind like an inconvenient summer vacation cat.  
Racked by guilt he kept replaying his last impressions of them. Gillie had buffed his hand with her head, sensing his hesitation. Poe had sidled up to her, wagged his tail looking for a treat, clueless as usual. Both of them had presumably had good owners before him (well, in Gillie’s case it was a fact) and he told himself that they wouldn’t be too badly off without him, but he could harbour no such illusions when it came to Winston who had already run away once.

It had been three hours, but he had only put 100 miles behind him. He drove slowly due to the snow which made the road slippery and reduced visibility. He didn’t really mind the slow pace as he didn’t know where he was going, but his attention had started to flag half an hour ago and now it was plummeting. His mind kept jumping between Winston turning his back on him at the shelter in a rare display of disapproval and Hicks’ visit the day before; the hands with long frozen fingers holding the file, the distanced sound of his voice and the correct posture.  
“Hell” he groaned. If he didn’t get off the road soon he would likely have a traffic accident.  
As he crossed the city limit of Grand Forks, he decided it was as good a place as any to stop.

The East Grand Inn sailed up on his right side and Will turned off to its sparsely populated parking lot. The snow lay thick on the parking lot and he had to slow down even further to keep from slipping at every turn.  
The wind biting into his cheeks as he stepped out of his car brought back some of his focus. He twisted and bent to release the joints.  
‘You’re old Will’, he told himself, listening to his shoulder clicking in agreement while he retrieved the bag from the trunk.  
The snowflakes that had drifted on to his shirt through the open zipper in his jacket, started melting slowly. He brushed them off absentmindedly and headed for the lobby.

Will walked over the threadbare carpet to the unmanned front desk and rang the bell. After a few seconds the sports commentator voices filtering through the door of the back office suddenly stopped and a young man appeared smiling apologetically.  
"Sorry about that. Fighting Hawks against Wilds. North Dakota being just across that river, it feels like a win-win."  
Will hummed noncommittally and made himself smile back. "A room please."  
"Some storm out there, huh?" the front desk clerk continued while Will filled in the papers. "We will probably not be able to drive out of here before the plows arrive tomorrow morning if it keeps snowing like this." He turned his back to Will to retrieve a key from one of the many hooks on the wall behind him.  
If the carpet hadn't already clued him in to the age of the establishment already, the key would have — a real key, not a plastic card, and fitted with a weight as a reminder to return it at checkout, it justified the low price he’d paid for the room.  
“Thanks,” Will mumbled.

The corridor with its musty smelling carpet stretched out ahead of him. Dim lights lined the walls, interspersed at regular intervals. One light every two doors. He counted twelve of them before he reached room 128.

Decorated in muted colours of rusty browns, the room did not entice him, but then again he had slept in far less enticing places before arriving to lake Itasca. He also had little doubt that a few weeks down the line he would remember this fondly as one of his better dwellings.

Sleep, which had appeared to him as the most seductive of mistresses back in the car, would not even deign him with a glance now. After a good 45 minutes of staring intently at the ceiling, he was beginning to question if he was somehow going about it the wrong way. But no, he lay stretched out in bed, sans pants, not too cold. Sleep still wouldn’t come.  
The heating hissed. He could hear the occasional car pass, but not Poe’s light snores or the creaking of his cottage. The light from the street filtered in from the closed blinds at the wrong angle. The softness of the mattress and the scratchiness of the starched sheets weren’t the same as his own worn bedware.  
He wished he’d had the forethought to pack a bottle of whiskey.

Sleep must have taken pity on him for when he came to the sounds of water lapping against wood let him know that he was no longer in his room. The sweltering heat told him he was nowhere near the north.

The wood dock he was sitting on had seen better days. The deck had been bleached by sun, worn to the point that it seemed to shimmer.  
At the water level, the algae crawled up the poles, tainting their darkened wood green.

Will shaded his eyes from the sun, coming in at a late afternoon angle. A cleaning knife balanced delicately on a bucket on his right side. It held a fish which he knew would go into his stew later.  
A sweetness drifted in the air, something like honeydew, but from looking around at the bearded cypress trees he surmised that nothing so sweet as honeydew would grow here.

A woman sat down next to him, her curly black hair spilling over a shoulder. Her white dress provided a stunning contrast to her skin.  
He rubbed the cotton of her flowing skirt between his fingers. It felt real enough.  
She leaned her head on his shoulder and took his hand in hers. They were no warmer than the surrounding air.  
“Why did you have to wear white?,” he sighed.  
She shrugged. “It’s your dream, Will Graham. You tell me,” she replied, her hoarse voice hiding her quiet dark amusement.

He turned away from her to kill the fish with a quick blow.  
“Are you staying for dinner again?” he asked, resigned, while he gutted the fish.  
She looked towards the cottage at the end of the wood dock, its walls askew, tree beards and moss curling over the roof. “If I must”.  
He worked the fish quickly with the knife. Sweeping the waste off the dock before he stood up to collect the bucket and the remainders.

She looked him over with an evaluating frown. “Where is your grisgris?”  
Will swallowed, his legs tensing to run or lash out; he wasn’t sure. “I lost it.” His gaze drifted down to the boards, bile rose up his throat. “In Cape Girardeau.” His whisper crackled like static around the words.  
He pinched his lips closed, refusing to let the emotions twist his facial muscles. His hand was a different matter though, he dug his short nails into his palm preferring physical feelings.  
She stood up facing him, keeping a respectable distance. He knew she wouldn’t try to approach him intimately this time.  
The light breeze increased, brought clouds to veil the sun, caught at her dress. The dirt on the dock had left marks of muted greens and brown on the cotton. It seemed to seep upwards from the hem.  
“You made some friends on the way,” she mused.  
Will felt it like a slap against his face. Why would she make light of his humiliation? Call the bruising pain an act of friendliness? He held still, allowing it to wash over him, unable to move. “Why…,” he began but couldn’t fit all his sense of betrayal into the same sentence.  
“Why indeed?” she countered, closing her eyes, leaning her head back. The wind lifted her hair off her shoulder, exposing her neck.  
Will’s breathing constricted in a sob as he dropped the items he’d been holding along with his sanity onto the wooden planks of the dock, leaving him only with a knife in his raging hand. His shallow breathing quick and unrelenting he tightened his hand on the implement and lunged for her, putting his whole body into the thrust.  
The blade, though relatively blunt, slid into her as if she’d been made of French butter.  
“No you know,” she smiled. “This…” A gasp for air turned into a cough, releasing a fine mist of blood from her mouth.  
His hand cramped around the knife still burrowed into her chest, vibrating with the last of her heart beats. He twisted the blade and felt something crack. Red spread from around the blade outwards on the pristine white of the dress.  
He knew it was a shroud now.  
He knew why she’d worn white.  
So he could see.


End file.
